IGSI's July 2026 journal, with its theme of "Using Historical Newspapers," will be an especially meaty issue! Slated for inclusion is an article about the Periodical Source Index (PERSI) and a Q&A interview with Adam Barrone, PERSI supervisor.

In the meantime--to whet your appetite--here's news that appeared in the Allen County Public Library's Genealogy Gems (May 31), part of the "News You Can Use" article by Curt B. Witcher:
 

A major enhancement to the Periodical Source Index was launched this month. In addition to the continual indexing that adds thousands of records to the database each quarter, and under the direction of the project supervisor, Adam Barrone, we started linking to digital copies of periodical issues indexed in PERSI and found available for free on the Internet. Whether the issues are on societies’ websites, the Internet Archive, the HathiTrust Digital Library, or any other posting entity and are available for free without need to login or acquire credentials, we are starting to link to those issues on the PERSI result pages!

When one conducts a search in PERSI (freely available 24/7 on the Genealogy Center website at www.genealogycenter.info/persi), one can navigate a path that leads to a results page. For 22% (and growing) of the 3.2 million PERSI records, there will be the international symbol for a link displaying after the ACPL call number. Clicking on that link will take one to the free site where a copy of the periodical issue you need will be presented. That’s right--for statistically one fifth of the results of searches in PERSI, one will be taken to the actual virtual copy of the periodical needed. If there is ever a reason to try PERSI, or go back to PERSI again, now is the time!